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Deborah Haarsma serves as the President of BioLogos, a position she has held since January 2013. Previously, she served as professor and chair in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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Back to School, Back to BioLogos

I love this time of year, when stores overflow with mechanical pencils and notebooks, glue sticks and backpacks. I can’t help but feel a flutter of excitement and nervousness as I await the start of the new school year, experienced vicariously through my unsuspecting young children.

On their minds: will my friends be in my class? What will my teacher be like? On my mind: how will their Christian school shape their understanding of science and the Bible? How will I respond if they come home one day and say, “Today we learned there were dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden”? (Now, I don’t have reason to think that will happen at my kids’ school necessarily—so far I have been impressed by the thoughtfulness of the faith statement and the principal’s responses to my questions about their philosophy of education. But I live, work, and worship in an evangelical context, so it is always a possibility.)

I’m sure many of you can relate. Ironically and unfortunately, our Christian community can be a bigger source of angst than “secular culture” often is. For evolutionary creationist parents and teachers, the educational situations that produce anxiety don’t always match those of our fellow church members. We are wary when Vacation Bible School rolls around in the summer—are they going to use the slick, popular, but scientifically inaccurate Answers in Genesis curriculum? The homeschool parents among us get nervous when it comes time to choose a co-op—will I need to “come out” as one who accepts “millions of years” and evolution, and if I do, will my kids be shunned? Parents of kids in public school worry about how to instill a robust, integrated Christian worldview that affirms science, even as their kids are being warned by well-meaning youth group leaders or friends about the evils of evolution.

Yes, the back-to-school waters are choppy, but nobody needs to navigate them alone. BioLogos has long been invested in supporting parents and teachers with resources and community. Be assured we are praying for you as you approach this new school year.

To prep for the year to come, browse our newly expanded and updated K-12 Educators Resource Center. We’ve separated K-8 and high school science curricula, added new books, videos, and other resources, and beefed up our list of great science education websites that many teachers draw upon when prepping their classes. You’ll want to check the BioLogos website regularly for the next few weeks for new education-related articles and interviews as well as some gems from our archive. Also, don’t miss our announcement at the end of the month about a new BioLogos curriculum program in the works!

Finally, make sure to drop by the BioLogos Homeschool Forum. While it is primarily meant for homeschool parents, it has become an important meeting place for many others looking for community, ideas, and advice about educating from an evolutionary creationist perspective. We hope you’ll feel welcome and stimulated by the discussions that take place there.

As we send our kids back to school, may they come to know God more fully through his word and his world.

Notes

Citations

Applegate, K. (2018, August 15). Back to School, Back to BioLogosRetrieved November 19, 2018, from /blogs/kathryn-applegate-endless-forms-most-beautiful/back-to-school-back-to-biologos

About the Author

Kathryn Applegate is Resources Editor at BioLogos. She received her PhD in computational cell biology at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. At Scripps, she developed computer vision tools for analyzing the cell's infrastructure, the cytoskeleton. Kathryn joined the BioLogos staff in 2010.